CSIRO animal lab earns global recognition

CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory has been recognised for its work in identifying and managing new animal viruses that have caused the odd cold sweat in the corridors of human health agencies.

This week the Office International des Epizootiques (OIE) accredited the high-security research facility near Geelong as the world's first international collaborative centre for the study of new and emerging animal diseases.

In the past decade, AAHL researchers have identified three potentially dangerous new animal viruses in Australia, and a fourth in Malaysia. AAHL's rapid identification of the viruses, and their animal hosts -- fruit bats appear to be the primary hosts of all four viruses -- enabled health authorities to take measures to limit the risk of epidemics.

Two of the new Australian viruses, hendravirus and bat lyssavirus, have caused human deaths, while the third, Menangle virus, killed pigs in a piggery near Sydney.

Nipah virus, a relative of hendravirus, killed humans and pigs in an outbreak in Malaysia in the late 1990s. Another outbreak occurred recently in Bangladesh.

AAHL director Dr Martin Jeggo said globalisation, climate change, changes in livestock production systems, and evolutionary change in viruses, in the case of the recent outbreak of avian influenza, presented an ever-increasing number of disease threats.

"Increased international travel has provided additional opportunities for infectious agents to move around the globe," Jeggo said. "As disease agents such as foot and mouth disease (FMD) evolve and adapt to new environments, they become increasingly difficult to manage.

"AAHL has been quite heavily involved in investigating emerging diseases, including diseases like bluetongue [a severe virus disease of ruminants, including cattle and sheep]. Australia is free of bluetongue, but in Europe, global warming has allowed the culicoid midge that transmits the virus to move as far north into Europe as Bulgaria."

Jeggo said that despite Australia's "fantastic" quarantine system, the risk to its $4 billion livestock industries -- and to human health -- was increasing. As disease agents like foot-and-mouth virus evolved and adapted to new environments, they were becoming increasingly difficult to manage.

New and emerging diseases had the potential to wipe out Australia's livestock products export trade, which was vital to the economies of rural and regional areas.

Jeggo said AAHL's track record in diagnosing and managing emerging diseases, its high-security biocontainment facilities, and 'hot zone' location, had all been factors in the OIE's decision to designate the facility as an international collaborative centre.